


i won't set my sights on other seas

by orphan_account



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, Graduation, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 04:51:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18684520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Changkyun leans in to kiss Jooheon. He tastes like sugary vodka and the odd limbo between spring and summer.If May 29th had a taste, it would be this.





	i won't set my sights on other seas

**Author's Note:**

> Titled after lyrics from "Archie, Marry Me" by Alvvays.

The air smells like the Fourth of July in May, like the tang of fireworks and campfire smoke.

Jooheon looks down from where he’s sitting on the flat edge of the roof above the back porch, a red solo cup crinkling underneath his jittery fingers. A balmy breeze rustles the golden tassel of his graduation cap. It sways in front of his nose as he takes a sip of whatever boozy concoction Hyunwoo forced into his hand. He sighs, his chest warm and tight with the throws of nostalgia for school years and summers gone by.

Below him, his friends are gathered around the fire pit.

Kihyun and Minhyuk are eagerly ripping open a pack of sparklers, fighting amongst each other for use of the lighter. Minhyuk tries tracing out CLASS OF 2016 with the tip as it hisses and spits with light, burning down towards his fingers. He points the sparkler a little too close to Kihyun and Kihyun nudges him playfully with his elbow in return. He feigns annoyance at first, just long enough for Minhyuk to pout back at him, before chasing him across the backyard to plant a purposefully slobbery kiss on his cheek.

Meanwhile, Hoseok sits in a beaten up lawn chair, tuning his guitar, plucking the first few chords to what sounds like a Fleetwood Mac song. His sandaled toes wiggle to the beat. 

“Hey, do you know _Wonderwall_?” Hyungwon asks in the sardonic tone that was missing from his valedictorian address, his lanky limbs sprawled out in the overgrown grass and a lemon garnished craft beer in his hand. His head rests on Hyunwoo’s suntanned thigh.

Hoseok rolls his eyes. “I don’t usually take requests, but if you insist…”

He only manages three notes before Hyungwon cuts him off.

“Fuck off,” Hyungwon says, and both Hyunwoo and Hoseok laugh, clear and bright like the twang of the G chord on Hoseok’s guitar.

Jooheon smiles along with them. Five best friends and four years later, Jooheon has gained an inch long scar above his right knee from a freak beer pong accident, ten varsity hoodies with various degrees of wear and tear, a tolerance for cheap booze, and a $200,000 diploma that’ll probably get wrinkled in the mail.

Jooheon turns as he hears the window slide open behind him. Changkyun ducks through the opening and steps onto the roof, careful not to let his sneakers slide against the shingles as he sits down beside Jooheon, some canned cocktail in his hand and the robin’s egg blue dress shirt he wore to the ceremony now unbuttoned down to his ribs.

“Has Minhyuk singed off his eyebrows yet?” he asks with a smirk and throws an arm around Jooheon’s shoulders.

Jooheon laughs, leaning into his touch. “Not yet, but I’m watching closely just in case.”

Minhyuk and Kihyun have convinced the others to join in on the fun. The sky is still light with the sunset, dyeing the clouds a kaleidoscope of colours; flamingo pinks, egg yellows, and tangerine oranges. Everything else down below is shadowed with budding nightfall. The sparklers cut through the dark like tracers, fizzing like the carbonated bubbles in a glass of Coco-Cola. A mid 2000s love song plays on the radio. 

While the other are preoccupied, laughing and chasing after one another with their individual fire hazards, Changkyun leans in to kiss Jooheon. He tastes like sugary vodka and the odd limbo between spring and summer. If May 29th had a taste, it would be this. 

Changkyun pulls away and places another sticky kiss behind Jooheon’s ear, his nose nuzzling into his hair just below his obnoxiously blue and satiny graduation cap. He sighs and Jooheon feels his breath hot against his neck like an August breeze.

Jooheon takes another generous gulp of his drink, lost in thought.

“Something wrong?” Changkyun asks, lifting his head up to look at him, eyebrows stitched together.

Jooheon merely shrugs, watching as Hoseok’s sparkler burns down to the nub, dangerously close to his pinched fingers. Hoseok, a music studies major, will continue working at the bar down the street while he produces music for local indie bands. 

Meanwhile, Kihyun slings his arms around Minhyuk and holds him close. After a four year streak as Student Council Vice President, Kihyun has a spot secured for him on the election committee of a future Democratic candidate. Minhyuk received his acceptance letter for veterinary school last month.

Hyunwoo makes a bee line to grab another beer from the cooler, pausing only to jokingly body roll to the music when Hyungwon goads him. Hyunwoo has a job waiting for him at his family’s contracting business, while Hyungwon is off to graduate school for his masters in English. 

Jooheon turns to Changkyun with a look on his face that he can only describe as lovelorn and melancholy. He brushes a hand, damp with the condensation of his drink, through Changkyun’s hair. It flows between his fingers, the colour of chocolate caramel in the toasted sunlight.

At the end of the summer, Changkyun will be moving halfway across the country for a position at the research lab his father works at. Whether or not Jooheon is going with him they have yet to figure out.

After four years of all night study crams, way too much coffee, last minute essays and research projects, Jooheon still has no plans for his future, no idea what to do with his art history degree. The only thing Jooheon is sure of is the boy sitting beside him, the boy he’s been in love with since he accidentally walked into the wrong lecture hall on the first day of class. He proceeded to not-so-accidentally sit through a two hour lecture on the function of the central nervous system instead of individualism in Florentine art, all because he thought the freshman in the seat next to him was cute.

Jooheon cups Changkyun’s face and kisses him, slowly and sweetly, the memories soft on his tongue like a melting sugar cube. He savours the feeling of Changkyun pressed against him, packing it away in the back of his head for a time when he’s unreachable and faraway.

“C’mon, tell me what’s wrong,” Changkyun says when their kiss breaks. 

By the way his eyes soften around the edges, Jooheon can tell he already knows.

“I’m just wondering what we do now,” Jooheon says with a sad smile, dropping his hands from Changkyun’s cheeks. 

Changkyun briefly knocks their foreheads together before pulling away, snatching the graduation cap from Jooheon’s head and placing it atop his own. 

“I’ll tell you what we do,” Changkyun says, the tassel swinging comically in front of his face. He raises his drink. “We get drunk, we celebrate, and when everyone goes home we can have sex on that hammock over there.”

Jooheon snorts. “Don’t be gross,” he says, nudging Changkyun in the shoulder, but it does cheer him up.

Changkyun points to his head. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want to see me wearing _only_ this graduation cap.”

When Jooheon crinkles his nose at him, Changkyun takes off the cap and tosses it off the roof. Kihyun protests when it nearly hits him.

“I guess it’s not my colour.” Changkyun shrugs.

Jooheon smiles and wants to kiss him again. Instead, he reaches over and interlocks their fingers, running his thumb over the gaudy class ring that Changkyun’s father insisted he wear during the ceremony. It was his when he graduated from NYU thirty-some-odd years ago. Absentmindedly, Jooheon begins to wonder what Changkyun would look like with a different kind of ring on his finger.

“Do you wanna get married?” Jooheon asks.

The question is out there before he can even think about it. Changkyun, who is in the process of sipping his canned cocktail, nearly chokes.

“Like right now?” he asks, wiping away the alcohol dribbling down his chin. “Or, like, in the future?”

“Either one,” Jooheon says and his ears are growing hot. He wishes he had the graduation cap back to cover them. 

Changkyun stares at him blankly. “Are you proposing to me?” 

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t have a ring or anything.” Jooheon stumbles over his words. A goofy smile spreads across his face. “But, yeah, I guess I am.”

Changkyun half-laughs, half-sighs. He sets his drink on the edge of the roof and swings his legs over to shift in closer, resting his head in Jooheon’s lap, a hand curling around the hem of his button-down. Jooheon cards his fingers through his hair and Changkyun hums pleasedly at the touch. 

“Have you thought this through?” Changkyun asks, looking up at him with eyebrows raised. “Like at all?” 

“Is that a no?” Jooheon pouts. 

Changkyun reaches up to poke at his protruding lower lip until it turns into a smile. “It’s a question.”

Jooheon shrugs, hand stilling in Changkyun’s hair. “There isn’t much to think about when you’re sure of what you want.”

“Well, I’m not sure you want to be legally responsible for my student loans,” Changkyun says.

“I have some money saved up,” Jooheon reasons. “We’d do okay.” 

Changkyun shakes his head, averting his gaze, staring instead at his class ring. He spins it around his knuckle. It’s slightly too big for his finger. “I don’t know, Jooheon. We haven’t even decided if we’re moving to California together,” Changkyun says. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth.

It stings Jooheon more than a simple ‘no’ would. The last thing he wants to think about is losing Changkyun, not when he’s trying to hold onto him with two hands and never let go.

Jooheon tries to prevent the hurt from revealing itself on his face as he says, “I guess you’re right.”

Jooheon considers retreating inside their apartment under the guise of getting another drink to lick his wounds in private, but then Changkyun reaches over to tenderly trace his jaw with the flat of his thumb, soothing them for him. 

“I want to marry you,” Changkyun says and his voice is uncharacteristically unsteady. “Now’s just not a good time. We need to figure things out first, yeah?” 

Jooheon nods and Changkyun nudges him forward to kiss him again. He cradles the sides of his head and slots their lips together, fingers splayed out in his hair. It reminds Jooheon of their first kiss. It happened just like this; a party on a lazy summer night, the sound of their friends chatter in the background, a fuzzy song playing on the radio. All they could focus on was each other, like they only existed within their own shared corner of the universe.

By the fire, Hoseok starts strumming something on his guitar. The song is light and summery like sunlight steaming through lace curtains in the early morning and the smell of freshly mown grass. Minhyuk and Kihyun lean against each other, drunkenly singing only slightly out of tune.

“‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older? Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long’,” they sing at the top of their lungs. Hyunwoo and Hyungwon clap to the rhythm and chime in. “‘And wouldn't it be nice to live together in the kind of world where we belong?’” 

When Changkyun breaks the kiss, he’s laughing. “Not sure how we’re supposed to think things through in the presence of those five,” he says, turning his head to kiss the inside of Jooheon’s palm. “It’d be nice to get away for a while, before the summer ends.”

“Well, if we’re not going to get married,” Jooheon says, “the least you could do is run away with me.”

Changkyun smiles. “What’s the difference?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
